


Stitches

by doomedship



Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomedship/pseuds/doomedship
Summary: AU, Claire and Lim go ahead with Neil's second surgery.
Relationships: Claire Browne/Neil Melendez
Comments: 40
Kudos: 197





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no medical background and did some potentially preposterous research around trauma Whipples and what on earth they meant by the consequences of the surgery Lim proposed. Turns out, the medical explanation on the show was pretty sketchy anyway. 
> 
> Thanks to shadow375 for answering many random questions about ischaemic bowel and the rest of it. Sorry for any inaccuracies that follow.

i.

She proposes the surgery in the corridor, and waits for Lim to cast her judgment. 

The numbers are horrible and the best case scenario is bad. 

Worst case is he doesn't even see the dawn.

But on this darkest of nights she will reach out and take anything, any sliver of a chance there is to keep him, and her eyes plead with Lim to understand, to know that this is the only chance they have of doing something other than watching him die.

"Start antibiotics and prep for surgery, stat," Lim says, her face grim but set, and she leaves Claire alone with him, off to pin down Andrews and Glassman for a consult on the approach. There is no option other than perfection here, and the weight of it hangs heavy round their necks.

A nurse rushes to get the equipment, and Claire moves to the head of his bed.

She struggles to hide her agony as she looks at him, his lactate rising, the fear palpable in his ashen face. 

"You're going to be okay," she says thickly. And he gives her a brave sort of smile, the kind that says he knows she's lying but he doesn't want her to worry about him. 

"So are you," he murmurs back to her, and she knows he's talking about after, about _goodbye_ , and she can't help it; a tear spills and she blinks furiously. He sighs and then stretches out an unsteady hand.

She puts hers in his desperately and holds on tight.

"Even if I make it off the table," he whispers. "I won't even be half who I was before."

She looks at him for a long moment. 

"You think a stoma will make you any less?" she says, her voice thick with emotion, but the look in her eye is defiant and fierce. 

"Diabetic. Feeding tube. Liver transplant," he says, each one another gaping hole in the hull of his chances of survival. "Who knows how much other function I'd lose. Claire-"

"None of that matters as long as you're alive," she says, and she doesn't think she's ever meant anything more. "We can figure all of that out when we get there. I'm not going to let you do it on your own."

He looks up at her and smiles, softly, sadly, like he's memorising the lines of her face, and maybe he is. She looks down at him as if to do the same, but she realises then that it's unnecessary; that there's already a thousand images of him in her mind's eye, burned in like staring at the sun.

The nurse returns with the IV and Claire hastens to administer, hanging the bag and checking the insert twice. She watches his vitals and breathes out slowly, reassuring herself at the steady numbers on his blood pressure and oxygen. 

"I-I've got to go talk to Lim," she says unsteadily to him when she's done, and she sits on the edge of his bed for a moment, drinking in the sight of him before she blinks back her tears. 

"There's something I need to tell you," she says. He looks at her as if in pain, and shakes his head slightly. 

"Claire," he whispers, but she reaches for his hand anyway. 

"I love you," she says, because standing there looking at him she's terrified of never saying it to him more than she's terrified of making those words real. He smiles agonisingly at her with tears in his eyes and he squeezes her hand desperately. 

"I love you too," he says back, his voice barely there, and she chokes on a sob as she bends and presses her lips to his, once, a last desperate moment stolen while she can. He returns her kiss despairingly, his thumb stroking her cheek while she clutches at him like she can gather him up and pin him to life with her own two hands. 

He looks up at her when she draws back, and she knows that it's a goodbye he's working up the courage to say. 

So instead of letting him she leans forward over him, her head finding his chest and her eyes locked on his as they spill over with her unbidden tears. He strokes her face and her hair, smiling through his suffering as she listens to the beat of his heart and wills that sound to always remain. 

She doesn't say goodbye, doesn't want that to ever be the last thing she says to him, and instead she leaves him with her love for him, palpable and whispered across the air like a breath shared between them. 

She rejoins Lim with Andrews and Glassman then, listens to the raft of risks and cautions and potential disasters that threaten every stage of his surgery. She lets it all wash over her, lets herself feel the waves of terror crashing through her, until finally she starts to ride over them and she finds an odd place of clarity within herself. 

No matter what, she will never regret loving, _being_ loved by him. 

"...Claire?"

Andrews' voice cuts through her reverie. She glances up. "You ready?"

_You're different. You're smart, you're special. Rise up._

She nods. "Yeah. Let's do this."

ii.

She doesn't leave the hospital for forty hours after his surgery. 

It's the most dangerous time and she's terrified, above all, that he'll slip away when she's not watching over him.

She gets Morgan to go to her place and get her a change of clothes when she's discharged from her own post-op treatment. Morgan complies with minimal snark, despite her rebandaged hands and tattered future. 

"Hope he's okay," she says, thrusting the bag at her. Claire meets her eye for a long moment, and nothing more needs saying. 

She sleeps in the on call room, showers in the changing room, eats a few morsels from the cafeteria whenever Andrews or somebody else reminds her that sustenance is necessary to life. 

And all the while she watches the beep, beep, click, click of his monitors and his life support and everything else that's keeping him tethered to life against all the odds. The stitches, holding everything he is together.

Eventually she accepts that she has to leave at some point, and grudgingly goes home to sleep and shower and dress properly. But she goes right back to sitting by him as soon as her next shift finishes, and she sits, and sits, and waits, as long as she possibly can.

She looks up Thailand and Moby Dick, and Googles "how to beat someone at bowling".

She watches his face, checks his drip. _Prays_. 

He's still got the silver cross around his neck and she thinks now, now's the time for God to make her truly believe, and she sits and rests her hand against his cheek and doesn't even care who sees. 

They are well past the jurisdiction of propriety now. 

"Hey," says Lim, and she doesn't bat an eyelid at how close Claire's sitting to him. She makes a mental note to thank her one day, for not making this harder, and looks up.

"Hi," she says, turning tired eyes on Lim. A look of understanding passes between them, and for a while they sit on either side of him in silence, and Claire finds its oddly comforting to have somebody else there too, somebody who _knows_. Lim must love him in her own way, she thinks, and that's fine too.

But after a while, she's called away again, and Claire remains in the quiet room. 

The process continues for days. People come in, ask her how he's doing, ask her how she's doing. Sometimes they sit with her, sometimes they don't. Some share stories about him, and she likes those people the best. She listens to them all and smiles, because she finds more than ever she wants to know every line that's ever been written in his story. 

She wants to write the rest of the story.

"Come back to me," she says softly, at the end of each day, before she has to leave. "I love you."

On hour eighty-six, he moves his hand, and Claire almost falls out of her chair. She checks his responsiveness, examining his eyes and squeezing his hand. She talks. Nothing else happens, though, and she settles back beside him, her head resting on the bed next to him. Just a tremor, maybe something, maybe nothing. She accidentally sleeps there that night, and the nurses don't kick her out because they see her vigil every day and they're the ones who squeeze her shoulder and bring her coffee and tell her not to give up.

She vows to thank every nurse on staff in person when this is over.

On day eight, Neil opens his eyes. 

iii.

She sits as close as it's possible to get to him, and he looks up at her and stares. 

The circus of nurses, tests, checks and tentative euphoria has passed. Andrews ushers everybody out, gives a knowing nod to Claire, and she adds him to her list of people to thank for giving her her moment with him. 

"Claire," he croaks, his throat barely making a sound. 

She cries with relief. 

"I'm here," she says, and she's not sure if the sound she makes is laughter or weeping or both in equal parts. 

"What..." he has to stop after each breath, struggling, and her fingers twitch with the urge to take away his pain. "...happened."

"You had the surgery," she whispers. "We transplanted the liver. We just had to wait to see if..."

"If my bowling days were over," he says, a little slurred, shutting his eyes with a tiny sardonic smile, and she laughs and wipes her eyes at this slow return of the man she knows. 

"Right," she says. "Might have a chance of beating you now. At last."

"Still never going to happen," he murmurs. He cracks an eye at her. "How did it go? Really."

She looks at him steadily, takes his hand. "You beat the odds even being here at all," she says softly. "You knew what... what the outcome of that would be."

"I'm not going to be operating anytime soon, huh?" he says, and it's impossible to miss the sadness in his voice. She strokes the back of his hand. 

"No," she says. "You'll need ongoing treatment. You need insulin, for now at least. You have the ostomy bag. You might need the tube for a while, depending on how it goes. You'll need lots of rehab and regular checkups. It's going to be hard. But it's okay. All of that is okay."

He looks at her for a long moment. 

"You deserve more," he says, and for a second she's speechless, can't believe that he's worried about _that_ when it's the very last thing on her list of concerns.

She looks at him with a defiance that brokers no argument. 

"Don't," she says, and the conviction in her voice seems to silence him. She gets up and with painstaking care she leans over him and presses her lips to his forehead, and he's looking at her so sorrowfully as she brushes his cheek, her words failing but the look in her eyes not hesitating to tell him she's going nowhere _._

"I wanted you to have everything," he confesses quietly, his brow knitted in anguish. 

"Why do you think I won't have everything?" she says, and she wishes then that she could show him himself through her eyes. 

"Claire."

"You _are_ everything. You always were, and nothing has changed for me, I wish you could see that."

He smiles then, torn, pained, weary and afraid, but she thinks she sees something like her commitment reflected back at her in his eyes, and she perches on the edge of his bed and presses her cheek to his, and the merest brush of her lips against his.

This is a long road paved in his stitches, but she won't even hesitate to walk it. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right. I wanted to explore some of the emotional issues associated with going through something life changing, which is what I really wish we could have seen on the show. 
> 
> Thanks so much to Shadow375 for all the amazing ideas and assistance with medical points <3

iv.

She's not an idiot, and she's not a stranger to the hard knocks of medicine. She's all too aware of the uphill struggle that's facing him and the truth is, she is scared to death. 

So many things could still kill him and she feels a wave of terror every time she wakes up at home and realises that he's still in hospital, still in intensive care, still facing the longest odds. She spends as little time in her apartment as humanly possible now, and dedicates the rest of her time to her shifts and being at his side. 

He stabilises over the next week, and it's a series of small victories. Gradually he's progressing from intensive care and he even starts to look a bit brighter, less like he's at death's door. 

One evening she's sitting in the chair beside him, leaning on the mattress, watching him idly inspecting himself with a critical eye. 

"Tattoo's kinda wasted around all this mess," he mutters, peering at the extensive surgical scarring under his bandaging. She smiles and shrugs. 

"Now you know how all your patients feel," she says dryly, batting his hand away when he looks like he's going to start unpeeling things. She rubs his arm gently, because she knows he's been trying to put a brave face on the new landscape of his body and his life. 

"Baby steps," she reminds him, and he lifts his hand to her cheek, which makes her want to punch the air in celebration because only days before he would never have been able to lift his arm that high. She puts her hand over his and smiles widely. "Just like this," she says, and he returns her smile in a tentative flicker of hope.

Just then Dr Lim walks in, and Claire jumps a bit. It's no secret anymore that she's not just a concerned friend when it comes to Neil and his recovery, not since the whole hospital has seen and participated in the vigil she's kept since the night of the accident. But it still feels a little strange to be sitting there with him caressing her face out in the open, and suspects it always will be, at least with Dr Lim. 

"Hey, I'm glad I got you both," says Lim, and she sounds genuinely warm. "I wanted you to know your test results are back. There's no sign of leakage or rejection and we're monitoring your glucose closely. There's a moderate chance you're not going to need the insulin forever. Even if you do, a glucose monitor is hardly the worst case scenario we were looking at."

Claire beams down at him, and he looks a little baffled, like he's not used to people coming in here delivering good news. 

"That's amazing," she says, laying a hand on his chest in delight. He smiles at her weakly, before he looks over at Lim. 

"I'd be happy to cross a few things off the very long list of reasons I should be dead," he says. 

Lim smiles, reaches down and squeezes his shoulder. "Well, just keep this up and you'll be walking out of here in no time," she says, before she flashes Claire a smile and turns to go. 

Claire looks back down at him, and finds him back to watching her steadily, a faint smile playing at his lips, and for the first time since he collapsed that night outside the brewery she starts to think of the future, and not of the terror of right now.

  
v.

When he starts approaching discharge a couple weeks later there's more to consider than Claire could ever have imagined. She worries a lot, about who's checking in on him during the day, about whether she can be there enough for him. He brushes off her concerns with his usual disregard for himself and tells her he'll be fine, but she's still worried. 

He's made strides since he woke up, that much is true. He's able to be up on his feet, for short walks with some support. He hates this newfound frailty, she knows, but after a few run ins with his ego she tells him sharply that he's going to have to suck it up if they're going to survive the next few months. 

"You need help, and pretending that you don't is only going to make this whole thing take longer. So stop with the ego and let people help you," she says severely, and he locks eyes with her for a long moment, the man who's used to leading and taking control of everything he does warring with the man who knows he can't even make it to the bathroom unaided now. 

Her expression softens at the obvious conflict in his face and she walks up in front of him where he's perched on the edge of his bed, standing between his legs. She slides her arms around him, and he sighs and pulls her in closer.

"I'm sorry," he mutters against her neck.

He tries, then, to be a good patient. And for the most part he's doing okay. He's sometimes quiet, gets frustrated often, but she thinks he's processing his new, tough reality as well as can be expected. She thinks he should see a therapist, and surprisingly he agrees.

"I'd be a hypocrite for telling you to go if I said no," he says in response to her surprised expression when he accepts her suggestion so readily. He pauses then and frowns. "You are still going to yours, aren't you?"

She smiles at him and nods. She has missed a few sessions lately, but she's determined to get back in the habit of it. She knows she's got a lot to deal with already, and even more to come, so she wants to make sure she's as equipped as she can be.

The truth is, she has no idea what the future is going to look like, and that's pretty overwhelming.

She lies next to him in his hospital bed the night before he's discharged, marvelling at the fact that she's even able to do this, to get this close to him and feel the warmth of his body against hers. To get to experience his actual heartbeat under her cheek and know that he's not going anywhere without her, and that the beat is steady and strong. 

"I'd give anything for you not to have had to go through all this," she mumbles into him. "But I'm not sorry it got us here." 

He laughs and tilts his head to look at her searchingly. "Me neither," he says, his hand tangling into her hair.

When he leaves hospital the next afternoon he does so with full honours. Virtually the whole staff lines up outside his room and down the corridor and applauds while he walks slowly, a wheelchair refused for this part despite her best efforts and her exasperation, though secretly she is a little proud. He has his hand tight around hers instead, and he smiles and nods a bit self consciously back at all these people who are so willing to come over and show their appreciation for him, people whose lives he has in some way touched. 

Claire beams at them all, and her heart overflows as they pass like some strange royalty, and make their way slowly through the hospital. He gets into the passenger seat of her car a little awkwardly, working around his still-tender abdomen and weakened muscles.

"All set?" she says, reaching over to squeeze his hand before she starts the engine. He breathes out slowly, and she glances at him questioningly.

"I didn't think I was ever going to see outside that hospital again," he admits, and she smiles pensively as she gets in gear and reverses out.

"I know," she says quietly, and she shivers as the thought of what could have been runs through her mind. She drives the route to his place on autopilot, and it's another reason to shiver when she thinks about how much has happened since the last time she was here, some random Friday night where they had pizza and beers and stayed up late because she said she'd never watched Star Wars.

A lifetime ago, a different reality.

He looks on edge too as he hands her his keys and lets her get the door, following her inside. It's been empty for the whole time he's been out, of course, but it all looks intact, and she nudges him gently to the sofa where she sits down next to him and lets out a long breath. 

"Is it ever going to be straightforward for us?" she muses aloud, and he sighs and puts his arm around her and pulls her in. 

"Probably not," he says, a little regretfully. She looks up at him, and it's bittersweet; she's got him here, he's alive, which is nothing short of a miracle in itself.

But they don't have if he'll ever practise again, let alone operate, and she knows that taking that away from him is to rip out a huge piece of his heart.

"Doesn't matter," she murmurs, partly to herself. "There's still so much to come."

  
vi.

The hospital is pretty good about cutting her some slack in the weeks after Neil gets home. She notices she's on more regular hours than she's ever been, and almost no nights. They give her time off to be able to make Neil's appointments, and sometimes she finds herself off shifts for no reason at all.

"What's going on? I can manage-" she asks Lim as she's told to roster off at three one day, afraid of being seen as fragile and slack, but Lim rolls her eyes at her. 

"Cut the crap," Lim says firmly. "You've got more on your plate right now than Murphy or Park, and you know it. Just accept help, because we all want to give it. That's how teams work. I know Neil's got an appointment today."

She swallows and nods then, because it's true. She's strung out and exhausted from worrying about him, and from trying so hard to support him through his recovery, that she realises it would be shooting herself in the foot not to just be grateful for their willingness to pick up her slack. "Thank you," she says quietly, and Lim smiles.

Lim turns to go, but then pauses and looks back at her. 

"And listen, Claire, I know it's a bit awkward, but if you need anything- or if he does. Just ask. Sometimes you need someone on the outside too."

She feels her eyes sting, then, with gratitude and weariness and too many weeks of turmoil. She blinks rapidly until her vision clears and nods and smiles again, and then she heads to the locker room to change so she can get back to the apartment. 

That's the other new thing. 

She lives with him now, a kind of mutual state of affairs that just sort of happened in the aftermath; nobody ever really said the words but it was the most natural solution in the world to her needing to be there for him, and him needing her company and support. He can't drive for a while and she's taking him to his weekly check ups, even if he does try to insist he can get a cab. 

She's still got her apartment on the other side of town, but she's moved almost all her things out by now and she's pretty sure she won't renew the lease when it's up in a few months. 

He doesn't seem to mind that his place now has her stuff dispersed around it, his wardrobe now half taken up with her clothes and the bedside table on her side now permanently stacked with earrings and watches and books she's left lying around. 

It's full on, and not without its difficulties, but secretly she loves living with him. On good days it's like nothing has changed; he's warm and funny and takes care of her as much as she does of him. He uses his newfound free time to rediscover an old love of cooking, and to read a lot. And honestly, it's a comfort to come back in the evening and find him there, greeting her with a smile and a kiss.

He's on a rigorous physical therapy regime too, which took some getting used to. There was an initial period of outright depression when he realised the severity of muscle deterioration that had taken place, things he once could have done in his sleep now proving an impossible challenge. Not to mention his carefully sculpted physique becoming a fraction of what it once was. 

She only laughed a little bit at his vanity then, much to his chagrin. 

But his usual focus and determination to be the very best means he's progressing rapidly with the physio, and his muscle tone is returning already after a few weeks of effort. She smiles approvingly when he emerges from the shower in a towel one night, blinking water droplets from his eyes, and he smiles a strange sort of smile.

"I didn't think you'd have much reason to look at me like that," he says, reaching for a t-shirt. 

She props her head up on her hand. "You fishing for compliments?"

He smiles, but as he quickly dresses and climbs into bed she recognises his brooding mood, knows that this is a real and sensitive issue for him, and she drops the jokes.

How she feels about him physically has genuinely not changed; she wanted him before his surgery and she wants him now. It's pretty much that simple. But she knows that this is more complex than that for him, that his confidence has taken a beating, and he's not sure of himself like he once was. 

The ostomy bag in particular has been hard for him to come to terms with.

It's one of the reasons, she thinks, why they haven't taken things any further than slow kisses at the end of the day. She thinks neither of them is sure, neither wants to push too far before the other is ready. Her because she doesn't know if he's healed enough physically or mentally for anything more, and him she suspects because he still has doubts that this is really what she wants.

But she _does_ , and she gathers her courage and shifts over in the bed, her body sliding over his and lips meeting his before she can start to overthink. He gives a little exhale of surprise, but kisses her back readily, hands sliding up her back as if by instinct. 

He breathes unsteadily, his kiss becoming deeper and more searching, and as his hands start roaming under her shirt he pulls back and meets her eye, his own expression raw and open and she feels her heart constrict. 

"Yes," she whispers, in answer to the question she knows he's asking. "Please."

And it's enough. He pulls her shirt from her and kisses her again, his fingers moving expertly over her exposed skin and she sighs, her breathing uneven as he explores her body. 

He looks a little reverent, a little in awe of her, when she sits back, and she smiles in mischief as she sheds the rest of her clothes and returns to him, sliding her hand up his shirt while he's distracted by her bare skin above him.

He gives a small smile as she does, allowing her to smooth her hand up over his side, her fingers scraping lightly down his skin. She can feel the grooves and the tender flesh where he's been cut and sewn back together and she watches him, sensitive to any change in his breathing or the tension in his muscles, but he seems calm, running his palms down her body to her thighs, splayed out over his hips. 

He is distractingly precise when he touches her, slow and experimental at first but gaining rapidly in confidence, and she quickly loses her focus and closes her eyes at the sudden, ruthlessly powerful pleasure of finally, finally feeling him touch her like this, like she's wanted almost as long as she's known him. Like she's the only thing he ever wants to touch.

When she opens her eyes again he's smiling a bit, a smirk even, and it gives her a little flash of pleasure to see that side of him replace his tentativeness, the old self-confidence that's such an intriguing part of his appeal rising to the fore. 

"Can I..." she says breathily, her fingers skirting to his waistband, and he tenses a bit, but his eyes are steady and trusting, and he nods. She smiles reassuringly, leaning down to kiss him and at the same time she nudges his bottoms down so that he can kick them off the rest of the way. 

She won't touch his shirt, not tonight, unless he asks her to, and she knows he won't. She knows there's things that he needs to have time to think about, to weigh up, to decide what he wants to do, so for this time, this delicate, uncertain first time, she just takes it slow, accepts him, her movements gentle and painstakingly careful as she adjusts herself over him, makes sure she can't hurt him. 

And even with all that going on in the background, being with him is a sweet fulfilment that she's never known before. 

The feel of him, the sound of him, is something she's imagined a thousand times and yet she never got close to this reality.

She has tears in her eyes when she finally falls apart over him, a stuttering cry of his name and all her fierce love for him falling from her lips as she falls forward over him, and then it's too much for him too. She wipes wetness from the corners of his eyes when he finally stills under her, looking up at her like she's made of the rarest gold. 

"Okay?" she whispers, her heart almost too full for her to speak, and she presses herself down against him when he smiles his answer.

"I love you," he says, and in his hushed words she feels the echo of the first time he said that to her, of the shadow of death that turned out to be the light that guided them through. She shivers, tightens her grip around him, feels his warmth and his steadiness and again, the thud of his heartbeat under her hands. 

"I love you too," she whispers, and she leaves those demons behind as she tumbles haphazardly beside him, her leg thrown carelessly over his. He pulls her close, laughing a bit as she buries her face in his neck and hums her contentment. 

She knows he doesn't want her to treat him like glass, knows he wants to find some semblance of the life he used to lead, and she'll do her damnedest to give him that. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #BringBackMelendez

  
vii.

The initial checkups he's had since his surgery have been cautiously positive. He's on a cocktail of medication to prevent rejection of his donor liver and infection, and the potential side effects of which are wide ranging and potentially vicious, and they're waiting to see what comes out of the woodwork for him.

Sure enough, after a couple of weeks he's struggling with worsening headaches most of the day, not helped by the fact that he can never seem to sleep through the whole night anymore. He often gets up before it's even light and when he does she almost always wakes up too. 

On one such night she pads out into the living room when she stirs after he leaves the bed, and smiles sympathetically as she leans her head on the doorway.

He looks worn out and fed up, splayed back against the couch, his fingers kneading his forehead methodically.

"Sorry for waking you," he mumbles, and she crosses the room quickly, dismissing the needless apology. She nudges his shoulder until he leans forward, and climbs in behind him on her knees so she can press her thumbs into the tight muscles of his neck. He sighs, his body relaxing against hers.

"Is it the headaches keeping you awake?" she asks, her hands working gently over his skin. 

"Not really," he mutters, closing his eyes. "It's nothing in particular. I just wake up and then I'm awake. I used to sleep like a log," he says, a little gloomy. He's become a little more downbeat since the side effects started making themselves known, and it's painful for her to watch and not be able to do anything about it. 

"Maybe we should discuss adjusting your meds," she says, but he shakes his head. 

"I don't think we're there yet," he says, rubbing his face. "I'll settle for no sleep if it means I don't reject this liver."

"Hm," she says, sighing as she rubs his back in soothing circles and rests her chin on his shoulder. "Wanna watch something?" she says, climbing around him so she can park herself in his lap instead.

He smiles then, his arms automatically holding her in place, but there's a tiny frown lingering between his eyes. 

"You have to be in for nine," he reminds her, leaning in to kiss her briefly. "You should go back to sleep."

She sighs, and he's right, but it doesn't make it any less unappealing to go and lie in the cold bed without him, worrying about his well-being. He seems to know this, though, and he nudges her to her feet and gets up too. 

"Just because I'm not sleeping doesn't mean I don't like being in bed with you," he says, at her quizzical expression. She laughs softly, sliding under the covers and letting out a deep sigh as he pulls her against him, his hand warm over her belly.

She lets herself fall asleep in his arms, knowing he probably won't be there when she wakes up, but she'll take whatever she can get and it will be enough.

Every day brings new challenges though, and when she wakes up groggily to her alarm going off she notes his side is cold and unslept in, and she sighs as she dresses and goes out to find him. 

"Hey," she says, finding him standing by the kitchen sink, staring vacantly out the window. There's a carton of milk sitting on the counter, the condensation dripping down the side. "You okay?"

He looks over at her, and slowly turns around, then holds his hand out to her. 

A fine tremor runs through his fingers, the shaking clearly visible. 

"Oh," she says. 

  
viii.

They'd known tremors were common with the medication he's on, but somehow they'd managed to put that to the bottom of the list of worries, and hoped they'd never actually have to address it. 

Of course, fate has other ideas for them, and it turns out he's in that unlucky fifty-six percent.

"It's not permanent," she argues, when he looks at her with defeat in his eyes. "When your dosage goes down-" 

"It could well be the same," he snaps, and she tries not to get upset. "Or worse." 

He's afraid his career is over and she knows he must be terrified, but she's feeling so worn out that she thinks if he takes this out on her she's just going to crumble. She swallows hard.

"I have to go to work," she says, biting back tired and frustrated tears. "Can we talk about this later? Call me if anything changes. I'm sorry."

He looks at her with some guilt mixed into his stormy expression then, but he just nods curtly, washes his hands at the sink and heads for the bathroom.

The milk stays on the countertop, and she swallows her frustration as she puts it away.

She leaves for the hospital while he's still in the shower, and sits at the steering wheel for a good five minutes when she gets to the parking lot, trying to get a hold of herself before she has to go in and function as a competent medical professional. 

"Hey, Claire," says Morgan, spotting her in the hall. "Wanna get lunch today?"

She stops, considers Morgan, and feels guilty all over again. She's been so caught up with Neil that she's barely spared her a second thought, despite the fact that she's been through arguably as big a life adjustment as he has. 

"Yes," she says. "I'd like that."

So she meets Morgan in the cafeteria as promised, and they sit somewhere off to the side where nobody will bother them and where the pale sun streams through the windows.

She feels like she's barely seen the sun lately.

"So, you look like crap," Morgan says, casually. She has to hold her cutlery awkwardly now, but her eyes dare Claire to comment on it, and she knows better than to do so. 

"Thanks," Claire mutters, stirring her soup apathetically. 

"Well, spill, then," Morgan says impatiently. "What's up with Melendez?"

"You might not have heard, but there was this earthquake-" 

"Yes, but what little lover's tiff did you have that's got you looking like you're about to cry into that godawful soup?" Morgan cuts in, her eyes like laser beams. 

Claire feels the tears she's been suppressing well up and she blinks them back. "It's just all the side effects of his meds," she mutters. "He- he had some tremors today."

Morgan is silent then, staring at her knife and fork inscrutably.

"Sorry," Claire mumbles. "I know it's not as bad as- you know-"

"My whole career going down the toilet along with most of the use of my hands?" Morgan says, her brilliant viciousness lighting up her eyes with something caught between malice and glee. "Yeah. Life's a bitch."

"I just don't know how to help him," she admits. Morgan sniffs. 

"You can't," says Morgan. "If his career is over you can't fix that. It's not your job to. You don't have to pick up all the pieces all the time, Claire. You always try to, but sometimes people have to find a way to walk around them and not get cut themselves."

Claire looks up at her, somewhere between shock and wonderment, and there's something kind of beautiful in Morgan's brutalistic view of the world. 

"Yeah," she says, and for some reason she feels a tiny loosening in the tension in the pit of her stomach. "Thanks."

"Any time," Morgan says casually. "And if he needs a pep talk from somebody with real problems, feel free to send him my way. Oncology is nowhere near as intense as surgery. I've got time."

Claire studies her, trying to see past that ironclad mask to the person inside. 

"You doing okay?" she says softly, and Morgan sighs. 

"It's fine," she replies. "It'll never be better than fine. But that's what it is."

And Claire nods. 

That's life, she thinks. Figuring out a way to make broken things fine. 

  
ix.

She drives home feeling a bit better about things than she did before she left, but she's anxious about what mood she's going to find him in when she gets home. She feels guilty about having left him stewing, and she's not heard much by way of text from him all day, which is unusual for them. 

She's preparing herself mentally for an emotionally challenging scene to play out when she turns the key, but what she actually finds is something she wasn't expecting even slightly.

There's inordinately loud Italian opera playing, and the whole apartment smells like frying garlic. 

"What in the world-" she says, utterly perplexed, as she drops her bag and coat and walks through to the kitchen. 

He's got his back to her with about seventeen different ingredients scattered over the worktop and three separate pans sizzling on the stove. The music is so loud he doesn't hear her come in, and he jumps when he turns around wielding a large meat knife and sees her standing there. He turns the music down sheepishly. 

"Hi," he says, wiping his hands off and coming around the counter to her. He gives her a searching look. "I... wanted to tell you I was sorry," he says, gesturing at the culinary chaos.

"And you thought you'd do that via the medium of opera?" she says, staring at him. She shakes her head as if to clear it. "What are you sorry for, anyway? You had every right to be upset, I was just-"

"You were just done being leant on," he says softly. "And I don't blame you."

"No," she says vehemently, shaking her head. "I _want_ you to lean on me, anytime you need to. That's not what I wanted you to think-"

"I know that. But no one person can absorb all the hits, Claire," he says. "You've been incredible. I don't know how I would have got through any of this without you. But I... have to take responsibility for my future too, whatever it looks like. So-" he takes each of her hands in his and smiles, the cocky gleam a familiar sight that almost makes her weep to see it again. "Why don't you go change, and I'll finish making it up to you."

She smiles, small at first but growing bigger as she looks into his warm, relaxed eyes, and on impulse she leans up to kiss him, hard and sweet, her hands framing his face. 

He smiles against her before swatting her roaming hands and telling her to go wash up before he burns something. 

And she has to admit, an hour later when she's full beyond measure and slightly in awe of his culinary abilities, she's pretty impressed with the way he makes amends, even if she doesn't truly believe he's done anything to warrant it.

She watches him clear their plates with such starry eyes that he stops and laughs at her. "You are such a soft touch," he says affectionately, pulling her to her feet and sliding his arms around her waist. She loops her hands around his neck and smiles at him, and the music is still playing so he starts to move them slowly around the kitchen in a tender reminiscence of the first time they danced. 

A lifetime ago, two different people, yet still the same. 

She's melancholy in some ways as they stand there and dance, missing the simplicity of their old lives. Missing a time where every day wasn't an uphill struggle for him. But as she looks up to him she realises that in spite of it all, he is every bit as much as he ever was, and maybe more, for all that this hard road has taught him. 

"I'm so proud of you," she says suddenly, and he laughs. 

"Remind me to cook for you more often," he says, bending his head to kiss her. 

And when he takes her to bed that night and he's slow and languid over her, his bare skin pressed against hers without any doubt, any holding back, she can't help thinking there's something so powerful in the solemnity of the moment, in the way he touches her like an act of worship. She realises then that this is the moment, this is him, choosing who he wants to be. 

He could have been bitter, could have shied away, let part of himself die along with the bits of him that were cut away on the operating table. 

But instead he is here, choosing life, choosing her, and for all the incredible things she's seen him do she's never seen him braver.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took ages to post. I actually wrote it over a month ago but experienced "oh my god I can't write I hate everything" syndrome so I shelved it and couldn't bear to look at it. It was written during post-finale depression hours, to put it in context, and could be very soppy, but I've got such a backlog of drafts I wanted to push this out there. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this piece, and sorry I'm not the best at sustaining multichapter!

x.

At work, there's been changes for her. 

They have a new attending covering his old position. She's female, older, and nothing like him in any way, which is a relief, and an annoyance. She misses him in surgery, maybe more than she expected, given the way their relationship has changed. But then, she has loved him for much longer than she's been with him, and loving him once went hand in hand with working with him. 

It just worked.

They knew each other like the back of their hand in the OR; there were things he didn't even have to ask and she'd already know where his mind was going. With this new woman, Dr Steinberg, everything is new and uncomfortable, and though she tries to be fair to her as she's filling such big shoes, it's not easy. 

After a slightly frosty surgery that almost went south, she exchanges dark looks with Park and makes her exit as soon as she can. She thinks Steinberg would have got along better with Morgan; there's a cool sharpness to her that makes Claire think of sterilised needles, where Neil was all warmth and wit even when he was busy being an arrogant pain in the ass to them in the OR.

She comes home one evening with a tricky case, one they haven't been able to crack even after spending all day putting their heads together, poring over the research. A new approach, Steinberg demands, but it seems impossible to achieve without leaving the patient either a vegetable, or dead.

"What's on your mind?" he says, spotting her pensive mood a mile off, and sometimes she wishes he wasn't quite so good at reading her.

"Just a case," she admits, shifting her iPad on her knee. She's been carefully avoiding talking much about her surgeries since his tremors made themselves known, and she doesn't know if he really wants to hear about it. But he looks interested, putting down his glass of juice and coming over to the sofa so he can peer over her shoulder at the case notes she's been contemplating. 

"Huh," he mutters. "Let me see the scans."

She has to stifle a laugh because he sounds so much like Dr Melendez as she first knew him, not the Neil she's become accustomed to living with, and it's oddly endearing. He catches her mirthful expression as she hands him her iPad and rolls his eyes at her before he gets totally absorbed looking at the images. 

Her heart aches a bit then, because she knows that being a surgeon is what he was born to do, and it seems like cosmic injustice at its finest that that might have been ripped away from him because he chose to help others before himself on the night when he was so badly injured. 

But then he looks up at her, eyes bright and alive, and he's telling her something clever about the surgical approach that she's undoubtedly going to pretend she came up with herself when she sees Steinberg in the morning.

"Be my guest," he says, laughing. He hands her the iPad back, and she tucks it away so she can look at him properly. 

And she realises that he is still here. 

"Consultancy is a possibility," she says, and his smile freezes slightly. He looks at her and sighs. 

"I know," he says, shrugging. "But..."

"But it's not surgery," she finishes for him, and he gives her a small smile and a shrug.

"Well. You could do it short term, while we wait to see if the side effects calm down," she says bracingly. "I can't have you being a kept man for the rest of your life. Or you could always join Morgan in oncology," she says wryly. 

He snorts, rubbing his right wrist with his left hand. "Before we reach that level of desperation... I think I'm going to ask them to switch the meds," he says, glancing at her a little uneasily. 

She shifts in her seat, considering, and part of her wants to say don't, don't mess with what's working, what's keeping you alive, but she reminds herself to be more doctor and less superstitious partner. Changing his meds has always been a possibility, and it might be one that gets him back where he belongs, with no harm at all, if the fates allow. 

"Yeah," she says, reaching out for his hand. "Yeah, I think that makes sense."

She knows he could live with the headaches and the insomnia and the nausea but the tremors are the deal-breaker for him; he's going to want to push this until he knows they've tried everything. Just like he would for any of his own patients. 

Taking away his steady hand is almost a death sentence for him, and she understands that feeling to her bones.

So she squeezes his hand, and tells him she'll be there for his next appointment. 

  
xi.

The specialist is understanding; she's well aware both Neil and Claire already know the risks and the benefits of each medication on the table as well as she does. She doesn't beat about the bush; she signs off on his new prescription and tells him to continue coming in for weekly monitoring until further notice. 

It's been a month and there are no signs of rejection of the donor liver, and switching the immunosuppressant shouldn't make that any more likely, though it's still the terrifying thought that prickles every day at the back of her mind.

They take a walk through the park in the fresh air when the appointment is over, strolling arm in arm slowly, and as she looks up at his familiar face in the midday light it feels like they're a couple on their thirtieth anniversary, not just a few weeks into a new relationship. 

The seductive threat of death on the horizon will do that, she supposes. 

"We should get a dog," she muses aloud, watching a jogger in fluorescents go by with an exuberant labrador at his heels. He laughs at her. 

"Just a dog? What about the chickens?" he teases, and she tilts her chin in mock defiance. 

"I'm saving those for when we pack up and retire to a house in the middle of nowhere together," she says, and she rolls her eyes as his eyebrows shoot up at this long distance view on things. "Joking."

"Sounds good to me," he says casually, and she looks up at him and sees the unwavering surety of his gaze belying his light-hearted tone, and she feels her heart race, aware but unwilling to acknowledge the quiet thrill she gets at the thought of that future, that reality where she ends up with him.

"This is our second chance, right?" she says softly. "No more wasting time."

"Exactly," he says, sliding his hand into hers. "So do your worst, Browne. Dog, cat, house, whatever. I'm not playing around."

And he's not.

Morgan laughs her head off at lunch a week later when Claire tells her they've rescued a dog, and she's given notice that she's not renewing the lease on her old apartment. In a month it'll be official; his place becomes her home.

"You are disgusting," Morgan snorts, flicking back her hair, but Claire can sense a sort of smugness about her, like she's acknowledging that she's been right about something big all along. "The wedding is when?" 

"Shut up," Claire mutters, but she can't stop the smile that keeps surfacing. "It just makes you less scared to do things that you were afraid to do before. You know, the whole almost dying thing."

"Obviously," Morgan says, smirking. "Because I thought I was going to have to watch you two make pathetic puppy eyes at each other for at least a decade before one of you did something about it." 

"I seem to remember a time when you weren't thrilled about us even being friends," Claire says dryly, knowing all of that is water well and truly under the bridge that almost crushed them. Morgan rolls her eyes. 

"Yeah, because I was right. He did want to bang you, and you would've got special treatment."

"You're right, it's special, that much is true," Claire says, just to get back at her, and Morgan immediately holds up her hand in disgust. 

"I'm eating, no thank you," she says, and quickly changes the subject to a new surgical approach for a brain tumour she's been working on with Glassman. Claire laughs and relents, happy to oblige, and for the first time in a long time she feels like maybe, just maybe, her life is finally back on solid ground.

For the first time in her life, even, there's nothing to tear the ground up from under her.

She vows to hold onto it with everything she's got.

xii.

When the dust has settled over their new lives as the weeks pass, something a bit like routine returns to her life, but she knows the next thing is finding something for him to focus on. 

He's pretty much as good as he's going to get a couple of months after into his rehab programme, and truth be known she's pretty impressed by how hard it would be for anyone who doesn't know him well to ever be able to guess that something as traumatic as his injuries has ever happened to him. 

He looks good. 

The change in medication has, for now, lessened the tremors; there's a window of saturation after he takes the drug where they still crop up, but so far it's only been temporary and doesn't last throughout the whole day, which they both know would have been career ending. 

He's cautiously optimistic about a return to surgery, some day, but oddly enough he seems more content to wait for that than he was when he was first out of hospital, now that they've changed his meds and he seems to be doing okay. He talks about it hypothetically, but like it's something mid way down the to-do list rather than right at the top. 

She asks him about that, tentatively, wondering if she she's pressing a sore point, but he looks unphased and considers his answer for a while. They're folding laundry and the radio is on, and their new dog is sleeping in a furry heap by the radiator. 

"I guess I realised I spent so much time on my career that I didn't get round to all these other things I wanted to do," he says, running his hand over his jaw. He looks at her consideringly. "And being with you kind of makes me think about those things even more," he admits, looking a little bashful, and she hones in on that with an almost gleeful interest. 

"Okay, I take it back if you're going to look that smug," he says, throwing a pair of socks at her. She laughs as she ducks, and then comes over to lean on the countertop so she can study him over the top of a pile of clean t-shirts.

"What kind of things?" 

He rolls his eyes, a little embarrassed, but the corners of his mouth quirk up. "The usual. Trips. Marriage. Kids. Figuring out how to replaster a wall. I don't know, I put all of that on hold thinking there'd always be more time for tomorrow, but... I think we both know now that there are no guarantees. So that's why I'm going to take the time, while I have it."

She leans over the t-shirts to kiss him, and he smiles as he puts a hand to the back of her head and pulls her in. 

"How many kids are we talking?" she asks casually, smiling at his surprised laughter against her lips. 

"Two. Maybe three, depending on how cute the first ones turn out," he says, and it's her turn to laugh. 

"Depends whether they take after me or you," she says teasingly, and he raises his eyebrows. 

"God, you're right, it had better be all me," he retorts, and she huffs indignantly before he comes around the counter and pins her back against it, his hips flush against hers. 

He's recovered a lot of his old confidence in his own body, slowly getting over any initial hesitation he might have had to initiate physical contact with her, which is a development in their relationship that she is very much on board with. 

Though it's taken time, he's more or less made his peace with realities of the ostomy bag, and they've figured out ways of minimising its presence whenever he feels the need to. Not that she cares in the slightest either way, but she's happy to let him take the lead on what he wants to do with it and she thinks having choices has made him much more forthcoming with his affection. 

Which she is not complaining about.

She's kind of amazed that in a couple of months she has gone from thinking she might never even get a chance to tell him how she felt about him, never knowing what it felt like to kiss him, to this point, of him, warm and solid and alive and tugging her into the bedroom in the middle of the day just because he feels like it. 

It's like fate is making up for all her life's hardships in one smooth glissade into this new existence where she doesn't have to doubt her place in the world anymore. 

She doesn't have to doubt it because it's wherever he is. 

So they book a trip. Not Thailand, exactly, but they pencil in a week away to start with, just a low-key trip to a cabin in the mountains out of state. She's reluctant to go anywhere too far in case anything happens with his condition, and he grudgingly admits that big trips will have to wait until he's at least a year post op, but it doesn't matter to her. Getting to spend any time away with him is more than she ever thought she'd get.

As for the other things on his list, well. They'll have to wait a bit longer for those, she thinks wryly.

But she hopes not too long. 

.  
.  
.

  
xiii. 

Twelve months on from the day of his surgery, they celebrate his latest batch of test results like they've won the lottery, and in their minds, they're pretty sure they have. The risks they took all those months ago have paid off like finding gold dust.

Because out of that ruin has come the deep foundation of the beautiful world they build, brick by brick, out of each day of their lives together. 

He proposes a week later, quietly, up on the rooftop of their apartment block when the evening sun turns the sky gold and nobody's there but them. 

He admits later that he's been holding off until he got that one-year all clear, just in case, and if she weren't so irrepressibly happy in that moment she might have told him off for waiting so long. 

She asks him how long he's known he wanted to marry her, and he shrugs and says "Something like eleven months and twenty-nine days."

She puts her hand in his, and the demons are laid to rest.

Whatever else happens in her life she'll always have this memory of him, golden and strong and vital up on the rooftop, smiling down at her like he's finally made it home.

And so they live.


End file.
